This have been answered a million times...so my apologies...

If I have 2 characters that Ive assigned Hammers to, and decide to Merge them later, do they get the effects of both of them? Obviously the attack modifiers obey Rule of 3, in the case you can use both, of course, but what about the other effects?

I understand that once we have 7 Hammers, characters may be assigned 2 of them, but what happens in this case? And if you dont combine them, does the other Hammer get removed or just placed in a square?

I guess this would apply to any Relic, now that I think about it... But Hammers are the most likely to come into play on this because theyre part of a resource assigned to the entire team.

I believe this should be in the rules forum. However I'm commenting as well because I'd really like to know the answer to this.

I would say if your merging you loose the hammer. Because the character being removed from the map picked up the hammer not the duo.

Hammers from the book are the only "relic" restricted to 1 per character. Other than having 1 per force, a character can pick up as many relics as there are on the map. My guess is either the duo get's both, or they create a rule saying something like you have to drop a hammer.

"Merge Game effects assigned to the individual characters pass to the Duo."
-player's guide

short answer - you get to keep it

The book of the skull specifically says a character cannot be assigned 2 hammers...

"Unless specified otherwise, a character may only be equipped with one hammer." Since in the book of the skull it specifies otherwise on the turning the dial portion. The players guide may also count as specifying otherwise.