Impa takes after her mother Shay in both looks and personality. Every dragon would agree, however, that Impa is ten times the warrior Shay is. Impa loves nothing better than to tussle with her older brother Komali (and she usually wins). Fighting isn't just a game to her, though; she is fiercely protective of her clan, and especially of her sister Hylia, whom she has recognized as the charge she will protect all her life.

Impa teaches self-defense, Coliseum-style battling, and hunting classes to the dragons of the clan. She has special classes for the hatchlings, who arrive eagerly for each lesson. At first, the mothers of the clan were hesitant to let their energetic children learn how to hurt other dragons, but Impa put their minds at ease by emphasizing in each lesson that her students must never lose self control or act in a violent manner unless they must protect their clan from dangerous intruders. Now the clan's mothers thank Impa profusely for instilling a sense of discipline in their hatchlings.

Impa longed to fight in the Coliseum for months before her father Grayson finally allowed it. No one knows if Grayson was just being protective of his "little girl" or if he just didn't want any other dragon to become a better Coliseum fighter than he was. Impa formed a team with her sister Hylia and her brother Groose, and they each trained hard under the Culex method. They soon surpassed Grayson's records and became the best Coliseum fighters in the clan. Grayson's a bit grumpy about it.

Impa made it a life goal to collect the entire set of Shadowscale Armor. She slowly built up a collection, scrimping and saving, aggressively bargain-pricing, sweet-talking Pinkerton, but she ended up receiving all her missing pieces as a sudden gift from a dragon named Vulpes. Vulpes had been born in Impa's clan but had wandered off to live in the Shadow Flight. Given Vulpes' new reputation as a thief, Impa had absolutely no desire to know where the armor pieces had come from, but she gratefully accepted the gift all the same.