But how do you draw or paint it? How do you give it a visual without incorporating a cultural artifact?
Depends on what the weapon ends up being and what it's made of. Like, if I decide that the people make their swords out of some sort of shaped crystal, inlaid with precious metals for those who can afford it, and wrapped in monster hide, I might come up with this (thank goodness for tablets and styluses and a youth spent drawing swords):
And it's
sort of reminiscent of swords from different cultures, but I didn't have any reference material in front of me so it's not meant to be any one culture specifically.
I'd have to spend a lot longer coming up with a person, and specifically what that person is wearing, and I'm not as good at drawing people.
(I'm sure someone who actually knows something about swords can point out how this is terribly balanced and would never work in real life.)
You could still be probably accused of appropriation because you were using what they call 'coding', or words that have traditionally been used to represent a specific group (in this case its a part of that groups culture).
Well, for that case, could you point out the actual coding here? Because I think I went vague enough there. Many cultures have warrior groups, whether they were European knights or Japanese samurai or a modern armed service. Many cultures have castes. Many warrior groups have codes of honor.
And there's the other problem of, it's almost impossible to make something
completely original. We're all going to take inspiration from somewhere. The point is to not be insulting about it and to at least
try to make something new.