>>543513148
For sapient creatures, I have Minecraft Comes Alive Reborn, Ribbits, Goblin's Tyranny, Gnumus, Farlanders, Rich's Wood Elves, Dwarves, and Kobolds. In terms of animals, I have Alex's Mobs, Faunify, Cute Companion Ducks, Creatures N Beasts, Mushroom Quest, Koopa's Critters, Critters & Companions, Myths of the Sea, Tameable Beasts, Ghosts and Bok's Banging Butterflies. I had no idea Mo Creatures got updated and I would've got that over Alex's Mobs if I'd known because le childhood nostalgia, but eh. The main thing you miss out on is Mo Creatures has some whacky horse, zebra, unicorn, pegasus, alicorn breeding system.

I also have Tax's Deep Villagers which allows villages to spawn under the ocean in glass domes, Illager Warships, Spiral Tower villages, and Plenty of Golems.

And I have Lios Overhauled Villages to improve the default villager structures, but I imagine someone here will recommend a village overhaul ten times better. I'm satisfied with it personally. The other one I heard about apparently was impractically built despite looking beautiful and villagers were killing themselves, so I went with this one instead.

If you care about the world feeling more alive and vibrant visually, I have Sky's Flowers, Sweety's Garden, Serene Shrubbery, and Crystalcraft Unlimited which draws a lot of "bloat" criticism but honestly I like the customisation in how many different weapons, tools and armor you can make with all the different ores, plus shiny gemstones are like eyecrack to me and I like collecting them like a goblin.

I also got Even More Magic for the wands but it spawns a variety of dungeon towers to climb and explore. You won't go for long treks with nothing to see, you'll almost always see cool structures in the distance.

I'll try to post some screenshots later. I'm phonefagging right now because I have to allocate a lot of RAM to my Minecraft to make it run good.