This is not really a themed modpack, but it's not really a kitchen sink or minimalist modpack, either. It started with a simple thought: "I miss Mystcraft." I wanted a modpack with Mystcraft, but I didn't want a modpack with just Mystcraft. So, I added some more mods. I tried to be minimalist about it, but I wasn't slavishly devoted to minimalism. I ended up picking mostly tech mods. If you don't care about having REAL ULTIMATE POWER, there aren't any serious challenges to face, aside from surviving the Blood Moon.

The result is a fairly simple modpack that I think covers all the bases and brings back some of the spirit of the old FTB modpacks. It has Mystcraft for extra dimensions, Immersive Engineering as the core tech mod, Immersive Railroading because Railcraft was always kind of a letdown with its tiny trains, Astral Sorcery because I wanted a magic mod, Storage Drawers and AE2 for storage, and ProjectE for REAL ULTIMATE POWER. I added some smaller mods to round it out, like ChickenChunks for chunkloaders because the Extra Utilities chunk loading wards are unreliable (they occasionally unload the chunk for a moment) or Soul Shards Respawn for mob farming.

There have been some minor tweaks for consistency. For example, the Actually Additions crusher only produces two piles of dust when processing ore. Want the bonus dusts? Use the IE crusher. Some of the Extra Utilities opinium cores have different recipes, so you can now produce them using the ProjectE transmutation table. You will appreciate that later.

There are some world-changing mods, too. I added Biomes O Plenty because it's awesome, Ruins to add some neat stuff to find, and Blood Moon to keep you on your toes. I also added TorchMaster, because I don't want to be too mean. I added Pam's Harvestcraft for a wide variety of food, Spice of Life to give you a reason to use it, and Cooking for Blockheads to make it easy. I added Bibliocraft, Rustic, Chisel, Chisels and Bits, and ArchitectureCraft so you can build cool stuff. OTG was originally included, but it got kicked out because it broke MystCraft.

While ProjectE and ProjectEX are in the modpack, don't expect to start producing infinite nether stars from a wheat farm right away. I tweaked some crucial recipes to make it much, much harder to get started. You'll have to get pretty far in several mods to get the transmutation table, for example. REAL ULTIMATE POWER doesn't come cheap.

Here's a non-exhaustive list of what's not included:

Thermal Whatever (Every modpack ever has the Thermal mods. I'm a bit tired of them.)
Your favorite magic mod (Why isn't Astral Sorcery your favorite magic mod?)
RFTools (There are enough ways to teleport already.)
RFTools Dimensions (Redundant)
IndustrialCraft (I haven't been a big fan since it decided to be more like GregTech.)
BuildCraft (Neat mod, but I've been using it since forever.)
Industrial Foregoing (I've been using it and its predecessors for too long. I wanted a break.)
Gendustry (Have fun with your bee/tree breeding!)
Quark (I've never been a huge fan, but I might add it with a minimal config for the double-door functionality.)
Steve's Carts (I've never found it particularly useful.)
Tinker's Construct (Actually Additions gives you a drill, and ProjectE gives you tools fit for gods. What more do you want?)

Because of the relatively small number of mods, this modpack loads pretty quickly. I'd say it loads faster than most 1.12 modpacks I've played.

Ages of Waucka

Actually Additions

Actually Baubles

ActuallyComputers

AE2 Stuff

AppleCore

AppleSkin

Applied Energistics 2

ArchitectureCraft - TridentMC Version

Astral Sorcery

Baubles

BdLib

Bedrock B Gone

Better Builder's Wands

Better Foliage

BiblioCraft

Binnie's Mods

Biomes O' Plenty

Bloodmoon

Bonsai Trees 4

Building Gadgets