I need to implement a simple tile system into my 3d game client for npc/prop rendering.. I am using Primitives.getPlane(quad, scale) to generate a small region, but I can't figure out how I could go about making an imaginary 96x96 grid with textures rendered over it.
I have already written a method to load map data from a file and would render the scene like so <regionId, tileId, textureId>
I also would like to be able to not have any negative ids for tiles because it over complicates certain functions I intend on integrating server-sided in the future.

I know about text blitting, but what determines the coordinates I would use to place text above models..?

When I render a sprite such as this one: http://troll.ws/i/hOjXrL.png it comes out deformed on the game screen.. How can I render it to be the same size as the actual image?

Code used to render the sprite.. (works fine with sprites under 256x256)
getBuffer().blit(TextureManager.getInstance().getTexture("chatbox"), 0, 0, (int) x, (int) y, X, Y, FrameBuffer.OPAQUE_BLITTING);