In my case, I was going to have Odahviing carry the player to and from the battle. (and allow fast travel from the battlefield, so the player could just "Zoom" back to Tamriel.

As I said though, I can't even get the worldspace to sync with what is "really" there - check out the screenshots..maybe you can tell me where I'm going wrong?

Right then, so far so good.

L3dt produced map and exported to raw
Tesannwyn imported raw and exported to esp
Tes4Gecko imported esp and exported to esm
TesVsnip imported esm and allowed link to skyrim.esm and formid change to prevent save game errors.

Final result: in game world with distant water, able to save and reopen saves.

Next step tutorial.