Imp

Imps are an enemy in Homestuck. They are creatures of the Dark Kingdom. They are the most commonly encountered, weakest enemy, being described as cannon-fodder. They are visibly afraid of higher ranking Dark Kingdom creatures.

Shale Imps
A variety of creature which appeared in John's house in Act 2 after it was sent to an alternate dimension by the Cruxite Apple. Shale Imps are the first to appear others appeared much later. Shale Imps are responsible for John's dad's kidnapping, and are almost certainly the source of the oil-like sludge strewn throughout John's house, as the greater part of the creature is pitch-black, and drips visibly during Strife with John. This may be linked to John's Associated Item, Oil. Their name is probably a reference to oil shale. During Strife with John, an imp visibly recoiled from a towel launched out of John's Sylladex, indicating a possible dependency on the muck that coats their bodies. The other known varieties of imps, Cobalt Imps and Mercury Imps, do not appear to have sludge coating their bodies, as they do not drip like the Shale Imps do.

The Imp's trickster behavior and harlequin-esque motif of its clothing might be due to having inherited the physical and behavioral attributes of John's kernelsprite when it was brought to The Medium. Having been prototyped with the harlequin doll, the light and dark halves carried the 'information' of the doll to the light and dark spires. The imps got their clothes when this occurred.

John blames the imps for the defacing of his posters, but Rose postulates that John had scrawled the harlequins on his posters and repressed his memories of it long before the imps arrived. She shows screenshots (http://tinyurl.com/O413nanna and http://tinyurl.com/O413weirdo) that seem to prove that they were defaced already, but these contradict the previous ones (http://tinyurl.com/0413nanna and http://tinyurl.com/0413weirdo).

Cobalt Imps
After Rose's prototyping and entrance to the Medium, Imps appeared possessing variable aspects of her protoyping as well as John's. These include Harlequin, Cat, Suit, Cthulhu, Princess, and any combination of the prior. They are also noted to be stonger after the second prototyping. It seems safe to assume that other varieties of Imp will present themselves at later points, themed after the information each kid's Kernelsprite carries.

Cobalt Imps appeared at the start of Act 4, along with Mercury Imps. Cobalt Imps have the most health of the currently encountered imps. They are a dark blue colour, and drop cobalt, as their name suggests.



Mercury Imps
Mercury Imps are a variation of imp that drops mercury. They have more health than Shale Imps, but less health than Cobalt Imps. They are a dull grey colour, similar to that of mercury, and retain the basic Imp shape, with some differences due to Rose's prototyping. It is unknown whether they are coated in toxic mercury or not.