Winwood was just an ordinary man, an owner of a small record shop - certainly not a very suitable profession for someone who would become a hero in a magical land. But fate had its own plans for our hero. One day, feeling particularly drowsy, Winwood closed his shop and fell asleep on the sofa. Soon his dream turned into a nightmare: he realized he was trapped in his own dream world, a fantasy land with mages and ferocious monsters, unable to wake up. An old man named Naristos explained to him that a mysterious mage known as Thardan has been terrorizing the land for a long time. Thardan's power might be the only solution to Winwood's predicament. As a traveler between the worlds, Winwood alone stands the chance of getting close to Thardan, and perhaps ridding the magical land of his tyranny.

Fate: Gates of Dawn is a first-person role-playing game with turn-based combat, similar in visual style and gameplay to Wizardry and Bard's Tale games. The player can recruit up to 28 characters, resulting in four parties that can be controlled separately. A notable feature of the game is a day/night cycle with weather effects that influence the behavior of the world's inhabitants. For example, less creatures will venture outside if it is raining; the player can choose to cast the Rain spell to reduce the number of hostile encounters.

There is a total of 32 different character classes in the game; many of them are traditional (like Wizard or Cleric), but there are also many exotic ones, such as for example Nymph, Banshee, Valkyrie, and others. Each class has abilities and spells associated with it. The world of the game is inhabited by eleven races, each with its own background history.

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