There are 24 spaces in the outer region and 16 spaces in the middle region, for a total of 40 spaces.

Excluding the Treasure Chamber, Eyrie, and Meeting with Destiny, there are 28 spaces each in the Dungeon, Highlands, and Woodland expansions, for a total of 84 spaces.

Excluding the City Gate, Town Square, Jail, and all of the shops, there are 16 spaces in the City expansion.

40 + 84 + 16 = 140

There are 140 Dragon tokens.

At the start of the game, place one dragon token face down on each of these spaces. When a character lands on a space he flips the token over. If the token is a dragon scale then the scale is encountered according to the normal rules of encountering scales. If the token is a dragon slumber or dragon rage then the token is encountered as if the character drew it, after which it is discarded and the character encounters the space. If the token is a dragon strike then the character simply discards the token and encounters the space.

Dragon scales may only be used to provide a bonus once, after which they are discarded. (This is to offset the fact that all 120 dragon scales are in play.)

A new dragon king is crowned whenever the time card is flipped, simply passing sequentially from one to another.

We used to play something like that a long time ago, it worked fine if my memory serves well.

Easiest solution is to ignore all the nonsense about dragon scales and make the Dragon deck the Middle region deck.

Easiest solution is to ignore all the nonsense about dragon scales and make the Dragon deck the Middle region deck.

The problem with this suggestion is that there is no "the" dragon deck. There are three dragon decks. Are you proposing shuffling all three together? But then there are cards that actually involve the dragon scales. Do you just eliminate those cards?

I'm not a fan of this suggestion. The scales are integrated into the various dragon decks. It requires too much sifting through and sorting out and figuring what needs to be done in order to successfully implement it.

You sift out all the stuff to do with Dragon scales and shuffle the decks together. you only need to do it once.

You sift out all the stuff to do with Dragon scales and shuffle the decks together. you only need to do it once.

Combining them into one deck is problematic in and of itself. The decks are color coordinated. You know that green is craft, red is strength, and yellow is your weaker stat. By mixing them together you are setting it up so that you have a fairly good idea of what's coming, which takes some of the randomness of the game out of the equation.

Overall, I'm not a fan of removing entire components from the game. One change has a tendency to cascade into other areas, requiring even more changes. Even my initial suggestion, as you can see, required some clarifications and further minor changes. But this idea here, of completely eliminating scales, requires eliminating cards and changing the mechanics of the middle region. That goes a bit far.

But, hey, I hope it works for you!