Journeying through Skyrim is an experience molded by a self-driven narrative. We fashion our individual ideal characters to tell a personal story. But what if the NPCs had similarly detailed aspirations and personalities, and weren't just psychic town guards taunting us over sweet rolls? Kris Takahashi's Interesting NPCs mod (via Kotaku) is one of the best answers out there, populating the Nord homeland with over 100 new NPCs with nearly 20,000 words of recorded dialogue and even songs from volunteer community members.
"Each character is integrated into the world with a backstory and an extensive dialogue tree to explore," Takahashi writes on his blog. Many of these characters are fully voiced by a talented team of over 40 voice actors. The dialogue choices allow you to role-play, providing humor and depth to each conversation. You can be a jerk or a jester, a white knight or an assassin, as the most important character is you."
The mod also supplies 14 new NPC-related quests, and Takahashi plans to expand follower conversations and comments for "every quest and location in the game, including bonus conversations during or after major questlines." He calls them "super followers" because "they fly and wear capes." That's a fair reflection of the mod's writing quality, which respects Skyrim's culture and customs while staying lighthearted whenever possible—such as the grin-inducing awkwardness of complimenting a vain female Draugr.
The trailer above samples a number of dialogue interactions from various characters. Interesting NPCs is still in beta, but you can try it yourself by downloading it here.
