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For our group it was very simple:
Ameiko, now aware of her family legacy, wants to get to Tian to claim her throne. And as we are her friends and are looking for an adventure (something EVERY character should do!!!!), it was no question that we help her achieving this.
Also the DM changed the vision a little bit and make us something like the Ameikos "Oath-Bound Honorguard" (but this wasn't really needed).
For my character (Half-Orc Bear Shaman) it's his duty to protect his friends and also he hopes to get a fresh start there and get the chance to become more then only "the half-orc".
I solved this problem accidentally while solving another problem.
I was worried about Ameiko Kaijitsu being too powerful at 5th level and stealing the show from the player characters. So I swapped her out for her half-sister Amaya.
My chronicles Amaya of Westcrown have the full spoiler-laden story, but Amaya is an alternative character that James Jacobs had suggested in case the players had played through Rise of the Runelords and Ameiko Kaijitsu had died in that adventure.
Ameiko's father had had an affair with a Chelish noblewoman and Amaya was the result. In my story, the noblewoman's family had kept the pregnancy secret and put Amaya in an orphanage in Westcrown for privileged illegitimate children, so the orphans grew up knowing that they were from an esteemed family. Many had dreams that one day their family would reclaim them. Instead, Ameiko found out about Amaya and wrote to her. After their father had died and after the events of Pathfinder Adventure Path #25, The Bastards of Erebus, (no, Amaya is not the bastard in the title), Amaya had to flee Westcrown. She went to Sandpoint to join Ameiko. And she took Ameiko's place in The Brinewall Legacy.
Thus, Amaya had dreamed as a child about being a secret heir to noble family and her claim to the Amatatsu clan fit that dream. She wanted to go to Tian Xia to learn about her heritage.
For further coincidence, I had eight players during The Brinewall Legacy but three moved out of state, another quit gaming to spend time with a newborn son, and I forgot what happened to the fifth player, so over half the party disappeared before Night of Frozen Shadows. Thus, I declared that those party members had decided to remain in Varisa rather than traveling to Tian Xia. Of the three remaining players, two had originally come from Tian Xia. We recruited two more players whose characters came from the Jade Quarter of Kalsgard and were also interested in visiting the homeland of their grandparents.
As for Calybos1's game, the GM needs to make Ameiko interested in going to Minkai. Maybe she wants to claim the Jade Throne. Maybe she wants to find family that is not as bitter and abusive as her father Lonjiku Kaijitsu. Maybe she wants revenge on the oni and the traitors who drove her clan out of Minkai and then followed them to murder them in Brinewall Castle.
Once Ameiko resolves to go to Minkai, the PCs have to decide whether to follow her. If a PC does not want to go, then leave that character in Varisia and have the player create a new character to join them in Kalsgard.
As for the missing guide Ulf Gormundr, his best friend will ask the party to rescue him. Ulf is necessary to lead the caravan on the safe path over the northern ice cap in The Hungry Storm. The caravan from Sandpoint does not know how to survive on the ice. Most of the other northern guides never returned from their previous expeditions and the rest are scared. Thus, if the party wants to go to Tian Xia, they will become involved with the intrigue in Kalsgard of which the Frozen Shadows are only the primary piece.
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For my group the decision was done, right after the vision. After this "Our" Ameiko wanted to get to Tian to claim what is her heritage.
For this we had to get the sword first to legitimate her claim. When we arrived in Karlsgard we also looked for a Guide and the old Ulfen trader pointed us to Uk and so everything started.
It seems that your groups issue is more with the motivation of Ameiko, I think she should be the driving force behind the decision to go to Tian, maybe your DM missed something (or mine added something^^).
Our DM also gave us some kind of Oath during the Vision, making us to "Protectors of the heir (Ameiko)" which made clear that we have to help her to get to Tian.
But the PCs still aren't planning a trek to Tian Xia, because literally nothing in the story has suggested the idea.
Not even the "Jade Regent" title of the adventure path? Or the sentence, "An investigation reveals mysteries and menaces aplenty, but also a treasure holding the answer to not just one of Varisia’s greatest mysteries, but a conspiracy spanning continents and empires," in the blurb on the back cover of The Brinewall Legacy?
Okay, the PCs don't know they are on an adventure path and didn't read that. Nevertheless, that is why two of my players created characters from Tian Xia. They wanted to play Jade Regent for its Japanese theme. When I warned them that they would start in Varisia, they decided to bring their own Japanese flavor, a human ninja and a kitsune sorcerer disguised as human.
It seems that your groups issue is more with the motivation of Ameiko, I think she should be the driving force behind the decision to go to Tian, maybe your DM missed something (or mine added something^^).
Yes, the GM dropped the ball. Since modules have different writers, the plot hook leading to the next module is often underplayed. I have learned that fixing that error is the GM's job.
However, Ameiko has one more motivation. She could be assassinated if she returns to Sandpoint.
The Adventure Background on pages 7 and 8 of The Brinewall Legacy explains how the Amatatsus royal family fled the oni who were killing off royalty of Minkai back in 4652 AR. They sold the family sword Suishen to purchase Brinewall Castle, but later established a glassblowing business farther south in Sandpoint, which became their main residence.
In 4687 AR Rokuro and his son Lonjiku visited Brinewall so that Rokuro could explain the secret family legacy to his son Lonjiku. Unfortunately, Lonjiku was careless with the warding boxes and released enough magic for the oni in Minkai to pinpoint the Amatatsu Seal. (I don't know how. Oni are not known for being well observant.) They sent ninja assassins to kill the remaining Amatatsu family. Only Lonjiku survived, because he was lost at sea and presumed dead when the ninja investigated Sandpoint itself.
The other Five Storms oni will eventually investigate Lord Kikonu's death. They know that the Amatatsu renamed themselves Kaijitsu, so word of Ameiko Kaijitsu and her relation to Lonjiku Kaijitsu will result in the oni sending ninja again to finish exterminating the Amatatsu.
The GM's concern is that apparently a bunch of plot points require our PCs to already want to go to Minkai before he can give them to us, and we're trying to figure out how to link up what's already happened to making that a thing.
Night of Frozen Shadows has a Notoriety Point system for governing events in Kalsgard initiated by the bad guys. Kalsgard is a trade city, and thus strangers visiting is no big deal. The party has to earn the ire of the city bad guys before the city bad guys progress from harassing them to trying to murder them. (The Ulfen raiders who attacked the party on the road at the Skalsbridge are a separate branch of bad guys who don't rely on Notoriety Points.)
These Notoriety-Point events have nothing to do with Minkai.
My wife, who had played the ninja Ebony Blossom in my campaign, points out that a roleplaying campaign is collaborative storytelling. You will need to invent your characters' own reasons for going to Minkai. You have all the main world-spanning secrets already.
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Ah, but that's the problem. She doesn't want to do this. We all saw the same vision she did--weird and tragic family history, desperate need to sell a family treasure to somebody in Kalsgard. And her conclusion was not "I need to travel across the world to Minkai!" It was "Dammit, I want my family's sword back, and there's a chance that this merchant in Kalsgard still has it."
That's where the problem is. The book explicitly says that the vision makes Ameiko think, "I need to travel across the world to Minkai to reclaim my birthright! And maybe pick up that sword along the way!"
If the GM messed this up, she needs to have another vision.
These visions pass in the span of a few heartbeats, and after they do, they impart knowledge to the PCs’ minds.
The PCs know that the land they saw invaded by fiends was Minkai, that the man they saw murdered by the jade warrior was Emperor Shigure of Minkai. They know that Ameiko Kaijitsu’s true family name is Amatatsu, one of the five royal families of Minkai—indeed, the last surviving royal family. The PCs recognize the young Tian man with the sword as Ameiko’s grandfather, Rokuro Kaijitsu, formerly Amatatsu Tsutoku, selling the family’s legendary sword Suishen to the Ulfen merchant Fynn Snaevald in the city of Kalsgard to finance his family’s flight and exile.
They also know that Suishen is intelligent, and can impart much more knowledge of the Amatatsu family’s legacy if recovered. Further, they know that Ameiko herself is the heir of her line. Finally, the PCs know all of the powers and abilities of both the Amatatsu Seal and its warding box — including the danger of leaving the warding box open, which would allow the oni of the Five Storms to once more track the Amatatsu Seal.
Back at the caravan, Ameiko experiences these same visions, and as they pass, she wakes with a gasp as the kami possessing her returns in a flash back to the Amatatsu Seal.
She quickly recovers from the ordeal, and like the PCs, may be a bit overwhelmed at what the visions revealed, but by the time “Night of Frozen Shadows” begins, she is eager to travel to Minkai to seize her birthright and save an empire.
You could also try to work in the Frozen Shadows/Five storms connection; that their true masters are in Minkai, and that they will keep coming until the PC's have been killed.
** spoiler omitted **Ahh, that could be the problem. You see, the GM took this part literally too, so he gave us the writeup of the magic item in question. And as a result, in the brief in-character discussion that followed....
Spoiler:Party: "So, does Minkai need Ameiko to return there and claim the throne?"
Ameiko: "Well, I could, I suppose... but there are four other houses with Seals of their own."
PC1: "But we know the other houses have all died out."
PC2: "Not a problem. Because we know that the Seals can create new heirs as needed from any nearby people."
GM/Ameiko: "...Wait, what?"
PC3: "Hey, that's right. It's right there in the writeup for the Amatatsu Seal: 'Should no Amatatsus of pure blood be able to take up that charge, however, the Amatatsu Seal can invest the right to rule as an Amatatsu in any number of living humanoid hosts'."
Other PCs: "Hey, yeah! So Minkai's really got no problems after all; the remaining Seals can pick out any number of suitable candidates without us. We're all set. Off to Kalsgard! Let's go get that sword!"
GM: (silently cursing and weeping)This wasn't done maliciously; we honestly expected the Kalsgard chapter to provide us with the reason to go on to Minkai.
Oh dear, that property of the Amatatsu Seal. My campaign--and several other campaigns that I read about in this forum--decided to pretend that it never had that ability. It seriously undermines the campaign.
In fact, The Brinewall Legacy said,
The Amatatsu Seal is a potent artifact, one capable of altering destiny and changing the course of nations. When the PCs first open the warding box that contains it, the Amatatsu Seal immediately marks each character as an agent of the family, turning them into Amatatsu scions, as detailed on page 60. In addition, the PCs momentarily black out and experience a rapid series of visions.
This stone statuette of a dragon is one of five royal seals of Minkai, and represents the Amatatsu family’s divine right to rule the empire of Minkai. Should no Amatatsus of pure blood be able to take up that charge, however, the Amatatsu Seal can invest the right to rule as an Amatatsu in any number of living humanoid hosts. These Amatatsu scions often experience a series of visions of the past, present, and possible future.
This means that everyone in the secret vault when the warding box was opened was automatically declared a legitimate heir to the Jade Throne.
And we had a goblin PC in the party. Imagine a goblin as the approved emperor of Minkai.
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The Seal just needs to inform the PCs and Ameiko that ever since being awakened by their arrival, it has tried to contact the other Seals to no avail. It fears they might have been depowered, corrupted or destroyed.
Leave it to the GM to find an explanation they like (mystical disturbances or whatever).
Alors, IIRC, hunting for the sword leads the PCs to the guide in a way.