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The Arcana cleric's Arcane Abjuration feature may affect a celestial, elemental, fey, or fiend.

A Tiefling has infernal heritage and an Aasimar has celestial heritage. Is this sufficient for them to be affected by Arcane Abjuration?

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No, because tieflings and aasimars are humanoids.

According to the basic rules, player races (such as tiefling or aasimar) are assumed to be humanoid.

Every character belongs to a race, one of the many intelligent humanoid species in the D&D world.

Humanoid is a separate creature type than fiend or celestial. There are no creatures with multiple types. Therefore tieflings do not count as fiends, and aasimars do not count as celestials.

Some humanoids have subtypes, however "fiend" is not a valid subtype for humanoids. For example, a tiefling NPC would count as "humanoid (tiefling)".

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Can a creature be 2 types, such as humanoid and fiend, in the same way that a creature can be a humanoid and an elf (with numerous sub-types)? \$\endgroup\$
    – CWallach
    Apr 10, 2020 at 19:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ @CWallach Yes, a creature can be a hybrid for example UA Centaurs/Minotaurs are both humanoid and monstrosity, but as MikeQ says, this does not apply to Aasimar or Tiefling characters. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thank-Glob
    Apr 10, 2020 at 23:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ What is the logic for a hybrid humanoid/monstrosity but not a hybrid humanoid/fiend? \$\endgroup\$
    – CWallach
    Apr 11, 2020 at 4:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ @CWallach: That's something only the designers can answer. All we can say is that tieflings and aasimar are not fiends or celestials respectively; mechanically, their type is just humanoid. \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast ♦
    Apr 11, 2020 at 4:38
  • \$\begingroup\$ @CWallach In the past (3rd Edition), they made the distinction - Aasimar and Tieflings were "Native Outsiders". They were affected by things that affected outsiders (a broad type that included celestials, fiends, devils, and elementals), but still counted the Prime Material as their home plane for things that might send them away or work differently on home-vs-foreign planes. For 5E, they were made humanoids, probably to simplify player characters - the game is no longer strongly typed. \$\endgroup\$
    – T.J.L.
    May 15, 2020 at 17:49

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