And that fits in with the Chinese notion of the Middle Kingdom and everyone bows to the Emperor, and the American notion 'no American bows to anyone but God'.
I can see a number of versers having difficulties, lets say, with a full prosykinethes (sp?) which has that whole get down on your face before the King. I put something like that into one of my worlds where not bowing to the Presidential Limo got you in serious trouble.
And other rank issues...
1. Have any purple on you? Are you a noble? (Of course, that brings in the Ghostbuster's joke....if someone asks you if you are a god, say yes.) Kahlua (chocolate alcohol) riffs on this with a guy and girl about to drink Kahlua are magically transported back to the Aztecs who ask them in Aztec 'are you kings?', and the guy says 'yes' even tho' he doesn't know what he's agreeing too, and they have a great party.
So...
A. Colors that indicate high status. (Interstingly nowadays high status colors are more pastel or less pronounced, but in medieval times that loud Hawaiaan shirt the clueless gauche is wearing might be taken as a sign of great wealth and status.) Nowadays bold colors are more associated with the lower classes.
Purple and gold are good possibilities through time to get you in trouble.
B. Get out of the road when someone more important comes through.
C. At one time pants were the sign of a Germanic barbarian. The toga was of course the sign of a civilized person. Part of this is being deliberately impractical. The lace cuffs, or the toga or the seven layers of silk are not what you want to be wearing when you do heavy labor in the fields. And it tends to be in most societies that heavy labor in the fields is less honorable. Why its less honorable to work hard and nonviolently than sit about doing numbers might say something unpleasant about humanity.
D. A lot of people in various societies could not carry weapons. Carrying weapons tends to be a sign of higher but not highest status. If you're really high, you have people to protect you.
This happened in America too where some of the early anti-gun sentiment was about fears that immigrants would get weapons.
Versers tend to have a lot of habits that would mark them as high status in most historical socieites.
E. Smooth, nice clothing, with elegant design vs. rough and ready. Or in America, slacks with a hook, and a button and wingtips vs. blue jeans with cowboy boots. Of course, as one former boss of mine who was quite wealthy said pointing to his large red SUV...'a redneck Cadillac'. You can spend a lot of money on cowboy boots nowadays, so things are more complicated now.
F. Weight and skin color: Being fat earlier was a sign you had enough money to be fat. A tanned skin meant you had to work outside. Nowadays, its flipped about in most regards although its noted that the guys with the best tans on the beaches don't have jobs. But nowadays, thin and tanned is more of a sign of elite status than fat and pale.
Most versers are going to be on the thin and tanned side as their life is going to enforce being able to deal with rough conditions. But in much of human history that's going to say 'you're a working man'.
G. Hair can get really insane. I ought to write up two d20 list of differing hair styles so that the ref can roll up on one for males and one for females. Beards can range from the full patriarchical style to Van Dykes to mustaches to unmanly and womanish beardlessness /smirk. Ponytails, down to the collar straight, bowlcuts, double braids, shaved clean...
And if you have a Typical American Male haircut, and you land among the Mohawks, it is going to be NOTICED.
