https://github.com/bdowning/sql-assassin is something I wrote for myself that is very similar to SQORN and uses templates for the same reason.

I've also used them for DSLs, i.e. the following grammar compiler (where the actions are literal functions defined in the grammar string as follows), sadly never released:

https://gist.github.com/bdowning/4dca9f006f230bc7e8c18a2b9c9...