Hi and welcome pladams9.

Concerning your project, I would like to point you in the direction of http://www.afterwarp.net

You will find the directx framework asphyre there, which is the best and fastest framework I know when it comes to 2D game programming. The community over there is very active and many many people made demos on how to create RPG engines like those old NES-style RPGs.

So just take a look there and see if you find something useful. The community there is partially part of this community, so you don't get divorced from here. This community is for pascal game development in common with all kind of frameworks and on afterwarp.net you will find the community for a special framework which (in my opinion) fits exactly to your needs.

So far,
Dirk