Your character will automatically be sent to your "home city" when you're done in Torgage, said city depending on what race your character is. Aquilonians go to Old Tarantia, Cimmerians to Conarch Village, and Stygians to Khemi. If you're a premium player and have the Rise of the Godslayer expansion, you can make a Khitani, and get sent to Gateway to Khitai
AoC covers a lot of ground, and there are sites with maps and virtual maps around. Here's one good site:
http://www.valmerwolf.com/AoC/maps.htm
AOC>TV is a good site for figuring out what gear drops where, though it's not all that useful until you get to higher levels:
http://aoc.is-better-than.tv/index.php
Let's see -- there's great class advice in the class-specific forums here. But the best advice I can give is to join a guild that's new-player friendly. You'll find that your more experienced guild-mates are the best source for information in the game. Check the Guild Hall forum here for information on the various guilds that advertise there.