Warrior Poet / Tabletop Games

• In CthulhuTech there are the Nazzadi were specifically created by the Migou to be intelligent ass-kickers, and it shows. Also, one of the things that gnaws at the Nazzadi is that as a cloned race with no members chronologically in their 40s, they have no true culture of their own, and are desperate to create one. Therefore, any of the 2nd generation Nazzadi who take up one of the arts are highly prized by their families and the Nazzadi as a whole.
• The game mechanics of the Legend of the Five Rings RPG reflect the samurai ideal of a Warrior-Poet. "Levels" (School Ranks) are based on Rings which take the lowest of two statistics; one physical and one mental/spiritual. A truly accomplished samurai thus had to be quite proficient in mental attributes even if he is primarily a warrior (and vice versa). Many of the more sophisticated Bushi (warrior) Schools also offer training in artistic skills along with the more traditional martial fare with the epitome of this philosophy being the Kakita Bushi of the Crane Clan.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • The Bard class generally fills this archetype.
  • Fifth Edition Battlemasters (a subclass of Fighters) have some fluff that implies this trope, including proficiency in an "artistic" skill like calligraphy or painting.
• Pathfinder
  • The class system takes this one step further by not only having the Bard class, but also the Hybrid Class of Barbarian and Bard: the Skald, whose verses inspire their allies into a frenzy and can even temporarily raise a dead ally among other things. All while they fight their own opponents on the battlefield.
  • Lorewise, Shelyn is the Neutral Good goddess of romantic love, beauty, and the fine arts, who sponsors orders of clerics and paladins who are required to produce and protect works of art as a devotional exercise. Her favored weapon is the glaive.
• In Traveller different races have their own martial traditions. The Sword Worlders, for instance, name planets after mythological swords some of which come from the works of a famed Terran epic poet. The Azhanti have some of the best martial music and provide choirs for the Imperial Duke. Aslan have traditions of epic tales and decorative weaponry. And so on.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • The Eldar exhibit signs of this trope, but here the order rebelled against was not so much dishonorable or brutish war as decadence. Harlequins are a special subset of the Eldar race who are devoted to Cegorach (also known as the Laughing God), patron deity of the arts and the last remaining god of the Eldar pantheon. As per the nature of their deity, Harlequins keep knowledge of Eldar culture and history alive by reenacting it on stage. They also guard the Black Library (an interdimensional archive that specializes in the collection of information regarding Chaos) and are among the most dangerous combatants in the entire setting, capable of single-handedly taking down Greater Daemons of Chaos without breaking a sweat.
  • The Space Marines used to be encouraged to be this back before the Horus Heresy. The idea was that one day, they would have conquered everything, and being functionally immortal would have to adapt to lives of peace, so they were advised to study peaceful vocations like literature, art, and such. Nowadays, this isn't much of a priority anymore, though being in a World of Ham means they can still exhibit this trope:
    O Emperor, in wrath rejoicing at bloody wars: fierce and untamed.
    Whose mighty power doth make the strongest walls from their foundations shake.
    O Emperor, lord of war, hear this, my warrior's oath.
    You who are the mightiest of all men. The Paragon. The exemplar. The all-conquering master of Mankind. Make these coming hours of your servant's life full of valour and value.
    My sword shall not waver nor my heart weaken. I shall drown the xeno in his own blood. I shall smite glorious ruin upon the heretic. This I swear!
  • Factions and characters associated with Slaanesh, the Chaos God of lust, pleasure, and beauty, tend to exemplify this trope in particularly bizarre and unpleasant ways. Chaos is the collective id of sapient life turned into an incredibly dangerous Enemy Without, driving mortals to sacrifice everything in the pursuit of their own emotions and desires. Appeasing Slaanesh is thus both inherently violent (thanks to Chaos's rapacious hyperindividualism) and inherently artistic, with his Mad Artist champions leaving only a trail of eerily beautiful and startlingly innovative carnage in their wake. It should come as no surprise that the other two Warrior Poet factions mentioned above served as particularly fearsome recruits for the Prince of Excess - the Chaos Space Marines of the Emperor's Children Legion and the Dark Eldar of the extradimensional city-state Commorragh are amongst the most dreaded beings in the galaxy.
• Werewolf: The Apocalypse:
  • The Fianna, which were a tribe of Warrior Poets in what was already a Proud Warrior Race. They supposedly spawned the first werewolf bard in all of existence. They're also just a little bit Oirish.
  • Speaking of that "werewolf bard", it's actually one of the five Auspices — the Galliard, born under the gibbous moon, who starts the game with the second-highest Rage rating of all five Auspices, but whose Gifts tend towards communication, inspiration, and passion. They reappear in Werewolf: The Forsaken as Cahaliths, and while there are still bardic elements, they're more regarded as prophets.
• The Brujah vampire clan in the Historic World of Darkness Vampire: The Dark Ages and to a lesser extent Victorian Age Vampire. By the time of Vampire: The Masquerade itself, though, they'd lost the poet aspect almost entirely, and were just violent rebels without a cause. Well, not "entirely": they still have a reputation as terrible coffee shop beat poets and frame their rebellion in philosophical terms, but have gained a fairly justified reputation for using it as a simple framework for anarchistic violence.