FrogComposband: It reminds you of...

[archolewa]

What does it mean for an artifact to "remind you of" a different artifact?

For example, I have the Cloak of the Dark Lady, which "reminds you of the artifact of Merry" which presumably means the "Cloak of Merry."

What does that mean? Is there some way to combine artifacts to make them more powerful or something? Clearly they're not part of a set (assuming Frogcomposband has such a thing) since they take up the same slot.

[Sideways]

It means the cloak is a random artifact that is, in some way or another, a replacement for Merry's cloak. There are several ways this can happen. One is if the original artifact is specified as a quest reward or guaranteed item somewhere (Merry is a guaranteed item within the Barrow Downs quest), but by the time you get there you have already found Merry elsewhere; in that case a replacement cloak of roughly similar value will be generated instead of a second Merry. Another is if you turn on the "Randomize standard artifacts" option; if Merry is randomized, a replacement for it will again be generated in a similar way. The 'reminds you of...' description also appears on reforged artifacts, but in that case it is somewhat redundant since the reforge inherits the name of the original.