How do you get scales fast?

I know the birds on the plains can drop them, but do any other monsters drop them? Also, is there any type of villager that will generate them?

Looking through the code, I don’t see anything that gives you massive amounts of scales (probably because there’s limited use for them; you can get more iron and steel from mines than from the shop). There’s also no villagers that can produce them or any creatures that drop a large quantity.

However there are several ways to get scales, and if you take advantage of them all, you can get more than enough to buy the things that require them and cannot be gotten another way like the compass and workshop.

• You can buy scales in town for 150 fur each, so if you have a lot of fur (which you can quickly accumulate by having a lot of hunters), you can buy a lot-ish of scales.

• You can purchase scales for 100 fur from nomads who happen by. In fact, even if you run out of fur, you can just leave the Nomad dialog open and click the [buy scales] button whenever it becomes available as your hunters produce more in the background; it is worth the 33% off discount.

• Whenever you click check traps, there’s a 15% chance that you’ll get a couple of scales, so make sure to have the maximum number of traps, especially baited and to click it as soon as it becomes available.

• Whenever you hear noises in the store room, make sure to investigate because sometimes you will find that “the ground is littered with scales”. In this case, you will get scales amounting to 2% of your wood stores. Since wood starts to pile up quite a bit after you’ve maxed out your village, this can result in quite a lot of scales.

• If a beggar asks for furs, give it to him because he might leave a small pile of 20 scales behind (he might also leave a pile of teeth behind; either way it’s pretty disturbing and gross).

• If you come across the sick man, give him medicine and he’ll give you 5 scales (not much, but you’ll feel better about doing good).

• While exploring caves, Lizards, the beastly matriarch, and the deformed figure drop a few scales when you kill them. You can also find some in the lair of “a large animal”.

• Random encounters with lizards and strange birds outside also give a few.

The most scales you can get at a time comes from investingating noises in the store room. If you have a lot of wood, you can get a lot of scales. I noticed this when I suddenly gained over 1,000 scales thanks to my stockpile of 50K wood.

Here's another suggestion for scales. First create a full raucous village with 80 men, if you didn't, then put all 80 citizens as hunters. Then simply wait for the nomad to come in, and then don't close its windows. You'll buy each scale for 100 fur, in place of 150 in the market. For example, if you have a good teeth reserve, and you are lookingo for scales to buy alien alloy, you'll need 750 scales for each one. With 80 hunters you'll get 14400 fur/hour. Considering 150 fur as price for 1 scale, you'll need 112500 fur in the market, or 75000 at 100 fur each one from the nomad. It'll take 7h.48 - 5h.12.