In Brian Lumley's Titus Crow series that picks up on Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, Nyarlathotep is relegated to a mere symbolic representation of the CCD's powers of telepathy, instead of a Hermes-esque member of the Cthulhu pantheon. However, in Lumley's Dream World as visited by Titus Crow and sidekick de Marigny in later books, he becomes anthropomorphic and scary. And, to memory, very green, although this may fall under scary.
Lumley does this with his Azathoth and Shub-Niggurath also. Personally I have no real problem with the ideas of the latter two being only symbols instead of Scary Monsters, but there is a certain sentimentality one attaches to good old 'thotep... I remember when younger always having the image of Hermes in winged sandals and Nyarlathotep in winged combat boots.