New players enter the game on one of several Immigrant Islands. To achieve Citizenship and enter Egypt proper, an immigrant must construct a ferry on the island. Upon leaving the island, the new citizen may choose to be placed at one of the welcome banners stationed around Egypt. Further advice on what to do once you've left the island can be found here.
(New players should refer to the tech tree on http://www.atitd.info/ for details on how specific resources and technologies interact.)
Constructing a ferry requires a variety of resources and crafted items. To begin with, you will need supplies of grass, mud, sand, slate, straw, thorns, and wood. All of these are easily available on the immigrant islands; see the basic resources section for details on how to gather them.
The next step is to familiarize yourself with the schools. Visit the School of Architecture on the island and learn the stone blade fabrication skill. (See the schools and universities section for more details on skills.)
Using your new skill, make a few stone blades. (The "make a stone blade" option from your "special" menu.)
Return to the School of Architecture and purchase the carpentry skill. You can now construct your first building: a wood plane. (The "wood plane" option from your "projects" menu.) The wood plane is used to make boards.
With the boards from your wood plane and the brick rack construction skill (also available from the School of Architecture), you can make bricks. You'll need those before long.
The School of Art and Music will teach you the flax processing skill, and give you a packet of flax seeds. See the section on flax for details on growing flax. (Note that rotting flax in water takes only five minutes on the Immigrant Islands; it will take fifteen on the mainland.)
While waiting for your flax to rot, you may want to build a flax comb and small distaff. (Aha! A use for those bricks.)
With rotten flax, you can purchase the clothwork skill, which will allow construction of a student loom.
Process rotten flax on the flax comb to produce lint and tow. The lint and tow may then be spun into thread and twine on a distaff. Build another distaff or two if a single one works too slowly for you. The thread may then be woven into linen on a loom. You could weave the twine into canvas, but you won't be needing canvas on the island--instead, put it back into the distaff and spin it into rope.
Once you have completed the above steps, you should have ready access to wood, boards, rope, and linen. The only other thing needed to build a ferry is tar. Look around for a black tar pit on the island and collect some tar. You can now purchase the ferry construction skill, build a ferry, and leave the island.
Citizens who have passed the Initiation into Leadership may travel to any of the Immigrant Islands from one of the welcome banners scattered around Egypt. Mentors may not bring any items to or from the islands, and lose access to all their skills while on an island. Mentors have a "Mentor:" prefix added to their name.
New immigrants should feel free to ask questions of any of the mentors they see on the island--that's what they're there for.
Related Pages: :What To Do Once You Are Off The Island