Dave Thaumavore talks about WotC recent attempt to trademark the Deck of Many Things, which is already included in the CC-licensed SRD 5.2.
[To be clear, I did not write this article, but Discourse automatically pulls in the subject].
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Am I surprised, no.
Wizards is an IP and licensing company now… they would rather crowdsource and steal ideas, than develop them on their own. I hope this just cements in creator’s minds that making things for their games is not a smart thing to do.
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IANAL, but…
It seems like the release of items under a CC license wouldn’t necessarily restrict someone from having a trademark. Maybe it’s different when you’re trying to acquire a trademark. I just keep thinking about Mickey Mouse still being trademarked by Disney even though it’s in the public domain.
That being said, it does sound like trademarking Deck of Many Things would open WoTC up to some sort of beach of contract lawsuit under the CC license. I haven’t read it recently so I don’t remember if there are any specified remedies.
I don’t know if I personally would consider Deck of Many Things genericized, but it doesn’t seem like it would be hard to show a bunch of prior use (which I think is relevant in trademark, but I’m not sure).
I believe the different between Mickey Mouse and this situation is that the original black and white execution of Mickey Mouse is public domain now, but the other later versions are not.
IANAL either, but I have worked in corporate branding for a long time now, and an image is defined very literally for these types of things. It’s why there are so many logos that are similar but not exactly the same and there is so much debate over what is acceptable use and different.
Trademark is a bit different, since it is a phrase and I don’t believe its use can be argued as different and distinct. My guess is that they lawyers believe that they can do this because no one would have enough money, resources, awareness and will to contest it.
I also could be wildly wrong about my assumptions. But I have seen firsthand where a company decides that the legal battle is likely to go in their favor with a product name, even though there is a direct competitor, because they can win the battle regardless of if they are technically allowed to or not.
Either way, I think it’s hard to feel like wizards is doing this to benefit the players or the community. That’s enough for me, added to their past behavior, to choose to support other creators. I am losing next to nothing making this choice.
As someone who’s not a fan of 21st century WotC and thinks the Deck of Many Things is one of the most stupid magic items, definitely not worth of emulation, I’m rather conflicted here 
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these are hard truths, lol.
IANAL, but AFAICT, no breach of contract. CC is very explicitly just a copyright grant, not trademark or patent. They address this in a FAQ (for CC0, which tries to basically disclaim any copyright inasmuch as that’s doable):
CC0 very clearly states that trademark and patent rights of the affirmer are not affected – CC0’s sole reach is copyright and related and neighboring rights, including database rights. Trademarks rights are not affected because creators who use CC0 should be able to protect the quality of products that are associated with their trademark (for example, by preventing a subsequent user of the work from leading others to believe the work in its subsequent use and/or form is associated with or endorsed by the affirmer). So if your primary concern is to ensure the quality and integrity of products associated with your name or your project, then trademark, combined with CC0, may be an option for you.
The 5.1 SRD’s grant of copyright use of the Deck of Many Things phrase remains active, and it’s compatible with the 5.2 license, so you could readily derive from both SRDs and remain fine on the copyright front when using “Deck of Many Things”. But, soon, not so fine, depending on how you’re employing it/what it’s marketing, on the trademark front.
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