How to turn Fantasy Japan into an ally?

>be me
>DMing for first time
>Low-magic DND 3.5e with houseruled modern guns
>Heroes have to take a boat to Fantasy Japan to turn foreigner-hating high-magic magitek-using isolationists into allies of their empire. Or wipe them out because these fuckers have high magic and you don't want them fucking your shit up.
>Have no idea how to make these guys want to change so suddenly. I want to make it a "Thank you for helping us with this quest, we can talk about becoming allies now!" deal, but I have no idea what kind of quest could be this important to them. I also know nothing about Japan.

The only RPGs I've ever played are Fallout and Pokemon and this game is usually really fun. I don't want to fuck this up.

>there is a magitek powered factory that helps the land somehow
>an earthquake sends the sensitive magic material rocking and it spills
>there is now magically polluted monsters and people running around on a rampage
>there is a schism on if they need to tone down the magic fuckery and embrace the gaijin or blame them for causing it and trying to take their magic away

Historically speaking, you bring Christianity and sell them guns

pic related

And outdated ships.

Figure out why they are isolationist.

They have the save the Emperors life or one of his children, obviously.

Or foil a plot to overthrow the Shogunate.

Even then though, they need to bring something to the table if you wanna be allies

Why not have them support a popular pro-trade, anti-isolation noble and his faction in a palace coup?

Because the rest of the world has monsters and bandits and homebrew bootleg WH40K demons. They are safe because their country wasn't involved in the magic war that attracted homebrew bootleg WH40K demons.

The entire race has powerful magic potential, due to using magitek experimentation on themselves. If "They'd make useful allies on the battlefield and their country has no demons and tons of rice" doesn't count, what does? Do I give them a type of magic fuckoff WMD just like every other country in this setting seems to have?

Ok, the quest idea is good, but you need to make sure that the quest isn't what convinces them to join.

The quest should just enough to get them on the negotiating table and getting important people to actually listen to them. Before doing the quest, any attempts at negotiation should be rebuffed and ignored.

Once on the negotiation table, its up to the negotiators to secure an alliance by proving that one is beneficial to them, somehow.

Also, make sure that Fantasy Japan is not all roses and sunshine and super powered warriors. They have to be in a situation where they also need the alliance, even if they won't admit it out of pride or ignorance.

Then you have to convince them that they can help clear out the mess. Because sooner or later, the mess will come to them.

Just make players nuke the weebs. Seriously, you're giving them a chance to cleanse yellowniggers from the face of the earth and instead try to make them negotiate?

go to bed uncle jimbo

The Jesuits were typically initially welcomed with open arms for their advanced scientific knowledge, translation work and deference. Most authorities also looked the other way with personal private conversions but had a huge problem with converting on mass.

Anyways, you play the long game of getting friendly and slowly advancing in the court but keeping suspicions low.

Hey, Japs are ok. It's the Chinese that suck.
Ok. How can I make things suck for Fantasy Japan and introduce problems they can't solve alone despite high magitek levels? Anti-magic mutants only guns can harm?

Why are you trying to work out the players goals and how they are going to achieve them?

Your job is to design the map, settlements, NPC's and their goals. That's enough work without working out how the players will achieve their goals, that's up to them.

If you're new then starting with a vague, high concept idea won't get you far as you'll have nothing actually designed for the session.

All you actually need to do.

>Design a starting village the players arrive in.

>Design a nearby dungeon for the players to explore.

>Link them both with a quest hook or two.

That's all and you're done.

>quest hook
>involving fantasy japan
>important enough to them to make fantasy japan unclose itself
>but something it couldn't do alone

How?

>Ok. How can I make things suck for Fantasy Japan and introduce problems they can't solve alone despite high magitek levels? Anti-magic mutants only guns can harm?

Running out of magical/natural resources which they need to keep their technological society running.

Again you're thinking top down on way to wide , you won't accomplish something like this in one quest.

A starting quest hook for this campaign would be .

'A group of rebel raiders are living in an abandoned cavern and raiding the local settlements , defeat them with your tech and prove to the village leader it's power'

Just a group of raiders/rebels? I want something more original than that. Because we kinda already did that with Fantasy France.