My Kingdom for a Pig

This is the last of Groover's exceptional stories that I've played. This one is very large, taking me up to around 80 actions to complete.

In many ways, this mirrors Cricket, Anyone?. Both stories are quite large. Both have fairly silly premises (a last-minute cricket player replacement vs curing a rhyming disease with a mushroom-hunting pig). Both end up uncovering a side-conspiracy that would be a main theme in other stories but is only a sideshow here (Benthic vs Somerset in Cricket and the truth behind the auction in MKfaP), and both end in a wild descent into non-reality uncovering vast truths about the Bazaar.

This is a great story. It has a lot of customization (you have several companions with different dialogue snippets and must choose between which ones to take), interesting mechanics (like bidding at an auction and a portion told entirely through red-bordered cards), connections to past actions (Poet-Laureate gets checked here, as does knowledge of the Khanate, connections to the Gracious Widow, and much much more), and great lore (you can learn intriguing details about the fall of each of the five cities).

I prefer Cricket, Anyone? marginally, but this story is better than almost all others. Flint was my touchstone for a long time on what a good side story should be, and it's intended to be much bigger and wilder than the Exceptional Stories, but I think this story plus Cricket, Anyone? provide better storylines and lore rewards than Flint (although significantly less financial rewards). Worth buying at the full Fate price.