The Bucolic Mountains

With the first of the extra-Terran pilgrimage routes - the so-called Via Imperator - established, the influence and prestige of Ophelia within the Ecclesiarchy grew almost as fast as its coffers swelled with tithes and donations. Constantinus, a wily politician, had gifted the pilgrimage route itself to the Ecclesiarch, but retained control of the territory surrounding it - ensuring the mouthpiece of Him-On-Earth would remain favorably disposed and inclined to grant concessions to the master of Ophelia.
The Emperor's edict concerning the mountains - that there would be no excavation or construction within them - had stood for over three centuries, and Constantinus and his immediate successors did not challenge or change it. It is uncertain how much of this was genuine religious obedience to the whims of their deity - even at this early stage of the Imperial Cult, higher-ranking members were willing to modify established dogma for the benefit of the Ecclesiarchy or themselves - and how much was practicality; Constantinus had defied the first atheistic governors' prohibition on merely entering the mountains by proclaiming the Emperor's "true edict" of forbidding excavation and construction. A theology of sacred space was quickly developed; the Emperor had walked within the mountains, sanctifying the terrain by his divine footsteps. Nothing could be permitted to disturb this hallowed ground. It would have been impossible - not to mention inadvisable - to challenge a doctrine so recently and powerfully promulgated.
But while construction and excavation were impossible, a human presence within the mountains was essential. The Via Imperator was hundreds of miles long and pilgrims made the journey on foot; places to eat and lodge were essential if they were not to starve or collapse with exhaustion.
"That the Emperor forbade excavation or construction is undeniable!" preached Constantinus. "But what did He mean by this edict? The ignorant and faithless might say we cannot know - that the mind of the Emperor is ineffable and beyond comprehension by mere mortals. But those who say that display their impiety and heresy - would they truly have us believe His divine instrument in the galaxy, the Ecclesiarchy itself, cannot interpret the Emperor's will? Was it not for this very purpose that the Emperor laid this terrible duty on His most-humble of servants?
"By speaking of 'excavation and construction', the Emperor wishes us to understand these things together - He does not forbid the raising of shelters, or the tilling of the soil. No! What he forbids is delving into the earth and using what is there to raise an edifice, or sinking a foundation into the sacred terrain. Furthermore, the Emperor forbids the extraction of mineral wealth from the mountains.
"Some may say this is foolish and short-sighted; that the mountains are rich with minerals and ores and Ophelia could benefit greatly by mining them. But what could we know that the omniscient Emperor is not aware of? Was it not, in fact, He who placed those minerals there? Did He not place them there as a temptation to avaricious troglodytes who would rather grub in stygian darkness than dwell in the benevolent light of the sun for the sake of a few paltry credits?
"No! The land of the mountains is sacred; it was sanctified by the footsteps of not only the Emperor Himself - although such a touch makes it the holiest of lands! - but also by that of the saints; Rogal Dorn and Verity. If the Primarch, the master of siege craft, did not see fit to dig trenches and build walls, who are we to so? To delve into the mountains would be to rape Verity herself, to raise edifices would be to attach crude bionics to her most-lovely frame!"
Thus did Constantinus and his subordinates and successors preach, interpreting the Emperor's edict for their own ends. The Chancellors' mining operations on the outer planets profited from the mountains' mineral wealth remaining untapped, and by controlling the Ophelian spaceports the Cardinal benefited from the transport and import of raw materials to build ever-more magnificent palaces and temples.
The stark, rugged terrain of the mountains was left untouched, but not uninhabited. The interpretation of the Emperor's edict did not allow the sinking of foundations or the raising of buildings made from materials cut from the earth, but it did allow the tilling of the soil and grazing of animals. Walls and buildings of undressed stone, collected from riverbeds and screes, drystacked with cunning and skill, were permitted. A months-long debate in the marble-and-adamantium cloisters of power concluded it was permissible to drive a wooden stake or piling into the earth, but not dig a hole to set a post. Wooden cabins, made of logs cleverly notched and spiked together, secured and buttressed with such stakes, were erected. Railings of split logs, fences of woven willow panels, not to mention tents of every shape and size and configuration - these were the edifices the masters of the faith permitted to be raised.
A rural culture of self-reliance and pastoral peace grew up in the mountains, with the majority of people being simple farmers or craftsmen. There was no prohibition on the use of advanced technology - the ploughmen could have used tractors to till the soil, but instead they preferred to walk behind a team of groxen, watching with expert eyes as the steel blade bit into the earth. The flocks raised for milk and meat and wool could have been tended by servitors and rounded up by modified cybermastifs, but instead shepherds strode the fields in all weathers, accompanied by loyal canines, rough-furred in black-and-white against the wind and rain.
This simplicity, a closeness to the land, labor done with hands rather than machines, became a hallmark of first the mountains' way of life and then their theology. It was lauded by the Cardinals and priests, and became part of walking the Via Imperator. Pilgrims would set aside their offworld clothes and put on homespun robes, cutting themselves a pilgrim's staff and walking the route on foot. Each day at noon they would break for a simple meal - sold to them by the daughter of a local farmer, or maybe purchased from a simple tavern - of bread and cheese and still-warm sheep's milk. In the evening, they would feast on roasted goat and cloudy ale beneath the smoky timbers of a tavern and then sleep on sheepskin mats. Or, if they mistimed their journey, share a frugal meal with a farmer or shepherd, sleeping fitfully in a hayloft or animal stall. In the morning, cured porcine flesh crisply fried and stuffed between stone-ground bread would be breakfast, and the pilgrimage would begin again.
This simplistic, even rude, bucolic existence only added to the popularity of the Via Imperator. Far from the pollution and bustle of the wider Imperium, the pilgrimage was a mental retreat as well as a spiritual one. The simple wisdom of the farmers and shepherds was lauded, their utterances debated as far away as Holy Terra itself.
Some, of course, preached warnings against the pastoral idyll - was it not indolent and wasteful to farm so inefficiently, to spurn the technologies of the Mechanicus? Such mutterings came from the Forge Worlds and even other, jealous, Cardinals - but the masters of Ophelia were wily and easily countered it. How can anyone call the farmers of the mountains lazy when they rise before dawn and work until dark? Their hands are never idle - and it is idle hands that are the playthings of the Ruinous Powers. Was it not technology that threatened to destroy humanity during the Dark Age? Does humanity, the most perfect of all forms, not risk being lost in the shadow of the machine? In so far as it is possible, should humanity not seek to cast off the shackles of the machine? The Emperor himself showed us the Via Imperator, should we not all follow in his sacred footsteps?
And so the pattern for the mountains of Ophelia was established; a pleasant, pastoral existence devoted to living in harmony with the land and serving the pilgrims of the Via Imperator. This was to last, broadly unchanged, for five thousand years until the Thorian Reforms and the foundation of the Adepta Sororitas.