The War explained

The War is the server's endgame. Enemy forces hold every city beyond Lumbridge, and high-ranking players spend real coin to launch offensives against them - with every participant paid out of a pooled reward split by personal contribution.

How an offensive works

A ranked player sponsors an operation, allied knight troops march out from Lumbridge alongside the players, and the fight runs until the victory condition is met or the operation times out. When it succeeds, the loot pool is split (see below).

The first target is Fallen Varrock. The city has no army left - a campaign there is a purge of the occupiers who run the loot hub: marauders on the southern approach, Black Knights holding the square, and the rogue captains dug in at the ruined palace. The deeper the line, the richer the kills.

Operation	Rank needed	Cost	Supply needed	Allied force	Win condition	Reward pool
March (scheduled)	- anyone joins	free	150 supply	10 knights	Kill 15 in the district	Pooled spoils + 1-3 Commendations
Grand March (every 8th)	- anyone joins	free	300 supply	16 knights	Kill 20; fell the Warden	Pooled spoils + up to 5 Commendations + Warden's embers
Send troops	Lord+	1,000,000 gp	-	8 knights	Boss raid support	Damage share
Summon boss	Lord+	3,000,000 gp	-	Backing raid	Kill the boss	Boss drops (damage split)
Campaign (Varrock)	Minister+	3,000,000 gp	1,500 supply	40 knights	Kill 60 frontier enemies	750,000 gp + 25 prestige
Conquest (Varrock)	King	15,000,000 gp	2,800 supply	64 knights	Kill 140 enemies	3,000,000 gp + 60 prestige

The scheduled marches are the free, no-rank way in - see Marches & the reconquest for districts, Wardens and the wanted captains. Broken districts shave 10% each off a campaign/conquest kill quota on Varrock.

Commands: ::march, ::districts, ::bounties, ::sendtroops, ::summonboss corporeal_beast, ::campaign, ::conquest. Check the realm's war stores anytime with ::supply - the meter is filled by skillers handing supplies to the Quartermaster in The Mire (see Skilling & the war effort).

Troop command

Troops you sponsor fight autonomously by default. Switch their orders with:

::troops advance - fight on their own (default)
::troops follow - form up and escort you

Lords who field troops earn a damage share for everything their squad kills - commanding well pays.

How loot is split

When a campaign or conquest is won, the pooled reward is divided like this:

The commander gets their war-stake back plus a 10% tithe off the top - rank has its privileges. This does not auto-bank: it's held as war spoils the commander collects with ::claim (a themed claim window - Bank All, or take pieces one at a time). A short banner pops the moment the war is won.
The rest is split by contribution - your time and activity in the battle is tracked every game tick - and paid straight to your bank, no loot scramble. (The commander earns a contribution share too, as a fighter; only their command cut goes to ::claim.)
Donors earn a bonus +1% of the pool value as donor points, minted on top (it never comes out of other players' shares).
Everyone who took part earns prestige / war effort points toward their next rank.

3rd age relics - the war's prestige drop

The 3rd age antique sets are earned in the war, two ways:

Battlefield drop - while a campaign or conquest is live, every enemy you cut down on the battlefield has a small chance (~1/5,000) to drop a random 3rd age piece straight to you. Server-sized rare: a piece surfaces only every few wars, so wearing one says you fought for it.
Leadership relic - the Minister or King who wins the war has a 1/1,000 chance to earn a random piece on top of their coin. It lands in their ::claim war-spoils box alongside the tithe, the moment the war is won.

Both are announced realm-wide. The Quartermaster still sells 3rd age as a slow, tripled-price pity-path, and buys pieces back from Lord+ at a third of shelf value - but the drop is the real story.

Defending the realm

When enemy raids hit a city's frontier, defenders earn War Effort for their kills. A successful defence pays coin bounties (scaling with contribution, capped at 50,000 gp) and rolls a rare-loot table - dragon scimitar, dragon dagger, rune platebody, abyssal whip and more. The player who lands the finishing blow is MVP and gets a guaranteed rare.