3. What exactly do the Revelationists believe? Are we free to write lore if there's a consensus that a particular religion or dynasty needs fleshing out?
3. The beliefs of the Revelationists are laid out very clearly in the religion's desription:
In other words, it's what happens when a backwoods preacher loses his copy of the Bible, dies, and then his kids try to create a religion based on what they remember of Christianity.
Basically, this.
Caveat: I'm not and never have been a developer for the mod, but I was an active participant in the original discussion that resulted in the Revelationists becoming a distinct thing from the Occultists of New England (they were originally both part of a generic "Occultist" faith), so I like to think that some of what I said had some influence at the time.
Take a look at the map, and draw an imaginary line from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. At one far end, between the Atlantic and the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, you have the Holy Columbian Confederacy and the orthodox Evangelicals: An organized religion, strongly rooted in "orthodox" Protestant theology and practice, supported by a powerful empire and all of the resources it can bring to support. Most of your clergy are going to be intelligent, literate men with a formal clerical education.
As you move westward into the Appalachian Mountains, things start getting a bit more rough-and-tumble. The links to the "civilized" world are weaker here, and education and literacy are spottier. This is where Evangelical orthodoxy gives way to the
Charismatic churches, who place less emphasis on adherence to formal rites and teachings and more on the movement of the Holy Spirit and the manifestation of its "gifts," the
charismata, as indicators of the presence of God working through an individual. This is where practices like speaking in tongues and
snake-handling as a test of faith are common. Nevertheless, there's just enough common theology underpinning the two that the Evangelicals still recognize the Charismatics as some variety of Christian, if one badly warped by heretical doctrines and practices.
Move further EDIT: west, over the mountains and onto the Cumberland Plateau, and you cross over into Revelationist territory. Where the rise of the Holy Columbian Confederacy relatively soon after The End provided an environment where Evangelical Christianity could preserve some measure of continuity with its pre-Cataclysm roots, those survivors west of the mountains splintered into dozens of competing communities and tribes. The understanding of pre-Cataclysm beliefs has been altered into something else entirely by the incorporation of local folk beliefs, Charismatic rituals, and other elements from non-Christian religions into their beliefs and practices. Essentially, Revelationism is an eclectic form of
animism with Christian trappings (like the Burning Bush, the Holy Spirit, the Serpent, etc.) seemingly present on the surface but totally divorced from their original theological context. To them, the "Holy Spirit," the "Son of God," and the "Burning Bush" aren't manifestations of a single omnipotent God, but members of a pantheon of totemistic spirits that can be appeased through ritual or angered through transgression like any other.