Interesting. I like the idea of Lydia being Balgruuf's niece.
Some of mine:
--Marcurio (f course I have one about Marcurio) ended up in Skyrim working as a rent-a-mage because he was chased out of Cyrodill after some scandal. What that scandal was varies from game to game for me. Often time I RP like it was something that got him thrown out of the College of Whispers and after word of it spread around Tamriel, he likewise is now barred from joining the College of Winterhold as well.
--Khajiit like Bosmer more than other non-Khajiit, and think the Bosmer best understand their ways.
--Bretons are terribly conflicted over their half-elven, half-human ancestry and their culture has developed a certain flair for pagentry and extravagance as a collective form distraction from their inner conlficted nature.
--Nazeem, although acts and dresses like he's wealthy, is in fact broke and deeply in debt. Hence all his brown-nosing with the jarl and his not-great realtiosnhip with his wife.
--Some of the Jarls are secretly hoping the Empire wins the Civil War so they can demand reparations to rebuild their hold cities.
--All the hold cities have a particular scent: Winterhold smells of fresh snow and pine mixed with a slight seabreeze coming up the cliff. Windhelm reeks of dankness, smoke from fireplaces and waste. Dawnstar smells of the sea, snowberries and the smoke from the smelters. Solitude smells of like damp stone, flowers and moss, with a tinge of urine, wine and fish. Markarth smells of smeltering metal, charcoal, stone and stale mead. Morthal stinks of algae, mold, both freshly sawn and rotting wood...and maybe blood. Whiterun smells of ale, grass, aged wood, cabbage and Gildergreen blossoms. Falkreath smells of rain, nightshade, freshly sawn wood and goat manure. Riften stinks to high hell of fish, fermenting mead and mildew.