Any of you have ranking signs in your government? army? navy? etc.?
Don't know what a ranking sign is? Here's an example, a corporal's ranking insignia.


I will post mine here once I fix mine up.

Hmm...I never actually delved into this. I have creed marks, but very few military insignia. This is a good thing to think about.

There was a time I could name on sight every insignia for every rank in the Navy from Seaman Apprentice to Admiral. Too many things to remember though, one symbol meant one thing in one color, something else in a different color, and could be confused with a job position that had the same name. (Like Captain, for example. It's both a rank and a position.)

It's not necessarily important for writers though, if you don't want to work one out. It'll really only add a small touch of detail, unless the plot makes them important enough to actually explain. It could definitely be fun though, working out the symbolism that represents each rank.

I might do this in my sci-fi projects, since those are generally more military oriented than any of my fantasy books.

I haven't really thought much about this; I think that whilst it might be a really fun world building aspect I'm not sure you'd need to use them in your book, unless like Varon said it was important to the plot. It might end up getting rather confusing.

Do you use the rank insignia a lot in your writing, Blayne, or is it just a fun world building exercise?

I'm planning to put them in my book, but only a few times, but even though I'll be putting it in my world building stuffs.

*Nods* I think it would be a neat aspect to delve into in World Building.