How do they work? Is it like some spell that you prepared beforehand and the word activates it, or is it some word in a special language or something that manipulates reality, or is it just a spell with a really short spoken component?
I donno if there’s any lore examples of it.
Well, I assume that ‘Power Word’ spells are inspired by D&D, like a lot of stuff in the game. If we look at some examples of ‘Power Word ____’ spells from 5e:
PW Kill:
“You utter a word of power that can compel one creature you can see within range to die instantly.”
PW Pain:
You speak a word of power that causes waves of intense pain to assail one creature you can see within range.
It implies that the word itself has power that is unleashed when it is spoken. I know Faerun has some weird lore about there being language of creation and a whole Bard subclass regarding how the universe was spoken into creation, though, so maybe a stretch for WoW.
Considering WoW’s ‘Power Word’ spells are used exclusively by Priests, one can assume that they are prayers of some sort with a lot of power.
Well, in WoW lore, the light and void basically exploded each other and made the universe. So maybe the words of creation thing is similar to WoW, just a closely guarded word that compels the light / shadow to do something.
I scream yabba dabba doo and things either live or die depending on how I’m feeling.
For the sake of the game, and your sanity, you pretend you priest says it when casting. I can only imagine having to hearl “Power Word ______” everytime I cast it for 20 years.
You remember “swiper no swiping!!!” it’s basically like that
I imagine it’d be one word, even one syllable, and it’d be some nonsensical fantasy language, like in Eragon, or Baldur’s Gate, or the shouts in Skyrim. Wouldn’t drive you that crazy.
Oh, it would. Especially casting it 20-30 times in my rotation in a single raid boss or world boss fight 
I would switch to warrior who is more “dim” and just swings stuff rather than speaking incantations.
Warriors scream a lot though – even already. You seem to just hate hearing your character’s voice, so how would you tolerate that?
Oh, I love hearing my character. RP is LIFE! In fact, I would love a way to do a /e with " and have everything spoken by my character. My point is in long fights, even some of the bosses that take forever to take down just repeat themselves, so hearing “Pain” or “Death” or even “Go go gadget missles!” 30 times in 7 minutes is a lot. I’d love to have a way to hear my character say something like “I understand you need my help” and like 9 variants everytime I pick up a quest. Would really make me feel more attached to my questing.
So you’d like something more along the lines of how GW2 characters are voiced.
Yeah, I’d agree then. I love hearing my character talk, and their personality.
Yeah, I wanna hear them, just not the same word repeated everytime I click that button during a long fight 
GW2 is a great example, or even SWTOR. Funny little witticisms, or comments/responses.
The lore is “they stole them from Dungeons and Dragons because it’s a fun concept with a badass naming convention”.
That is fascinating.
I read an Urban Fantasy series called ‘Kate Daniels’ a few years ago that had Power Words as a very similar concept. I wonder if that is where they got the base idea.
That makes sense.
(Although I feel like power words would make more sense for paladins for some reason, maybe because I see paladins as more powerful than priests.)
Paladins and priests are quite literally the same thing. Only difference is that a paladin was trained to use armor and weapons.
In lore, paladins and priests have the same magic, could do the same things. They just use their magic differently for gameplay reasons.
so you’re the puppetmaster!
Astronaut 1: Wait, it was Adorability all along?
Me, as astronaut 2: Always has been. Yabba dabba doo.
Umm… no they are not.
Paladins have a very specific theme and concept.
Priests are all over the map.
Paladins are holy warriors.
Priests are itinerant preachers and healers.
Paladins use holy power.
Priests use holy power, shadow/void or some combo of the two.
And that’s just off the top of my head.
I have been trying to pin down what priests are for ages and, while a strictly holy priest might be seen as the same as a paladin in function, in lore they have very different roles.
Yes, they are.
The only real difference between a paladin and a priest is training. Where priests are more scholarly, paladins are front line fighters. This might affect how they choose to channel the light, with a priest casting more spells and a paladin augmenting their fighting, but they’re using the same magic.
The original paladin brotherhood (The Order of the Silver Hand) was made up of priests who received martial training, and some knights from Lordaeron that were taught how to use the light.
In lore, there were some priests who wanted to be out on the battlefield helping people and saving people from dying, but they didn’t know how to fight, and robes don’t really give much protection. After they lost Lordaeron, a lot of priests were becoming disillusioned. So the archbishop at the time founded the order I mentioned above.
Technically a paladin could use shadow too (as evidenced by Arthas, for example), but the order was founded exclusively to heal and protect people, so training to use shadow would kinda be pointless.